“IT’S a joy chatting to the jolly Jo Hampson, one half of the dynamic duo  behind the critically acclaimed Smoky Jo’s food smoking  courses.  She’s been filling me in on the roundabout route that brought herself and  partner Georgina Perkins to their smoky life in Shap in Cumbria.

And it’s an intriguing tale to say the least….”  Read More

If you weigh your food before you brine it – to ensure it is dry enough to eat – fish should have lost 20% of its weight and meat should have lost at least 25% of its weight.

So what do you do if you are smoking a side of salmon and after 10 or 12 hours or more in the smoker it has still not lost the required weight? Well there are two things that you can do –
1) you can either light another fire but then you run the risk of it tasting too smoky
2) you can find some way of air-drying it either by putting it under a fan or even putting it in a fan assisted oven WITHOUT any heat!

Last weekend was such a time at Smoky Jo’s. I had salted a small side of salmon for about 6 hours and then cold smoked it for 12 hours. When I came to test it – it was not dried sufficiently, so off I went to put it in my home-made air dryer – an old fridge with a blade fan from an ‘expel air’ in the bottom.

Air drying a side of salmon with a desk fan

To my horror the fan did not work. Despite my efforts in changing the fuse and checking the wires I still could not get it to work. In the end I simply put the salmon on top of my chest freezer on a rack and angled a simple desk fan at it. The air flowed over the salmon and within 3 hours it was ready to eat! So simple!

Stephen attends and photographs an event and puts together a series of slides that depict what he has experienced and observed.  His photographs are amazing.  I urge you to have a look at this blog and as an example of how how catches the essence of his subjects – have a look at  ‘My Mum and Dad’.  Read what he says about his parents and then watch his slide-show -  it is quite extraordinary.

Stephen Taylor capturing 'A day in the life of Smoky Jo's'

He spent the day with us - floating around in the background  to the point that the rest of us hardly noticed that he was there!  He  recorded what it is we do on a food smoking course at Smoky Jo’s.   As he had been unable to join us on the Saturday for the sausage making and fishing we changed things around a bit to help him capture as much as possible.  So this weekend everyone smoked their own lunch on the Sunday rather then the Saturday which meant that people had even more to eat, but it  also meant that Stephen got to have some smoked salmon and everyone shared their own recipe sausages with him!  I don’t think he went home hungry and  I hope that Stephen got all the shots he wanted.

Photographing the photographer!

He has promised us a disc of photos – which will tell our Smoky Jo’s ‘story’ – I cannot wait.  Thanks Stephen – it was great working with you.

'Waldo' - our wardrobe smoker!

However I had never put in a chimney which is actually pretty essential to a) draw the smoke through from the wood burner and b) to get rid of some of the smoke.

So yesterday we set about drilling a hole through the top of the wardrobe at the back and out through the side of the smoking shed.  The first bit was easy – to drill a hole through the wood however drilling through thick corrugated iron was a little more taxing!

Making a hole for the chimney in the back of the wardrobe

Trying to drill a hole through corrugated iron!

 However finally we managed and I found an old piece of pipe and fitted it through to make a chimney.  We slanted it down slightly to try and stop the rain getting in and also drilled a series of holes at the bottom of the pipe so that any rain that might get blown in will come back out of the holes.

The chimney - with the first wiff of smoke coming out. - It works!

So here it is – Waldo with his new chimney and it is working very well.  As I write  we have fired him up and he is smoking a number of cheeses  – Brie, Stilton, Cheddar and Edam for our weekend  smoking course course tomorrow.

Waldo with his new chimney.

Georgina chose “Fingersmith” and I chose “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”.  On the  day in 2011 we were running a smoking course at The Wild Boar at Windermere so we were able to give our books away to people on our course and also to a number of guests who were either staying or dining at the Inn.

This year we were again selected along with 20,000 other volunteers to support this reading event and to give out two more titles.  This time Georgina has chosen “The Remains of the day” and I have chosen “Small Island”.  We will be joining others all over the world and going out tonight to hand our our books to people in the villages of Shap, Crosby Ravensworth and Reagill.  So if you are out there – watch out for us and come and ask us for a book!

Then all you have to do is read it, hopefully enjoy it and pass it on to someone else!

There are World Book Night events happening all over the country – look out for one in your area. www.worldbooknight.org

Much excitement ensued when Smoky Georgina introduced our new printed bags for everyone to take their food home in.  It doesn’t take much to bring on the excitement – but these were actually ordered two months ago – to be in time for the beginning of our season at Shap, but due to a number of reasons they arrived three weeks late!  Still we have them now and very smart they look too!

The blue Smoky Jo’s bag resplendent with the Smoky Jo’s logo ……

A happy group showing off the new Smoky Jo's bags

Sadly due to the brilliant sunshine (that often appears at the very end of a wet day here) you are unable to fully appreciate the beauty of the bags or in fact see the logo! – but join us on a course, or at The Northumberland Show on 4th June or at the Game Fair and you will see them in their full splendour.

Last weekend we had bitingly cold weather – but bright in parts.  Fishing was particularly chilly, with hands suffering! A generally good time 6/8 people caught themselves a trout and enough were caught so that everyone had one to smoke on Sunday.

As well as smoking them in a Snowbee and a side-by-side smoker, the two largest I cold smoked in Florence the Filing cabinet before baking slowly in the Aga.

The other exciting thing for this week is that I have a new camera, so next week’s gallery should be really good… if I have time to read the voluminous manual!

Widget, Bessy Beck trout Fishery's rescue cat

This weekend saw our first visit of 2012 to Bessy Beck Trout fishery, where we renewed acquantance with Widget, the cat rescued from a baling machine last year… We had with us Claire and her husband Adam, a fabulous, creative and technical chef.  I’m sure he would grace the screens of Masterchef if he had any interest in pastry.  I have put some pictures in this year’s gallery but thought more were required!

An exclusive course gave us the opportunity to experiment… so we did.  The food that wasn’t eaten over the weekend was taken home, and I understand the smoked caulliflower made a perfect puree to go with sea bass…

“Thank you Jo and Georgina for an absolutely wonderful weekend!  We are safely back in London now, with our lovely box of goodies, and Adam is full of ideas for things to smoke.  I will certainly let you know if he comes up with something particularly good!  You have been such fantastic teachers and hosts, and you really made the experience special for both of us.  I almost wish I’d saved you for next year, as now I have no idea how I’m going to top this for Adam’s 30th!!  Take care and all the best, and good luck with the book launch!  We will be buying a copy! ”

Well, we enjoyed it to!   Claire Lau has promised to send us some of the pictures she took too – as a professional photographer in north London I suspect they may be better than these!

We think this is the date “our” episode is being broadcast!  It was filmed (chaotically) last year with Smoky Jo in front of the cameras and me, Smoky Georgina firmly behind them…  We did a spot of smoking at The Wild Boar Inn, near Windermere and then down by a nearby beck.  The weather was lovely.  Hard to imagine…!

Here’s a reminder of our chaotic day with the crew…

If we find out which episode has food smoking I will update the blog and no doubt we will tweet and facebook and all that sort of thing…